Of Roses and Little Princes
by Anna Scathach
Summary: Your hands touched my skin one last time, not in a caress per se – but in a rough stroke that conveyed hurt and sadness and love. Your face was still, resigned. And I couldn't help thinking, maybe love isn't meant to last. Written for the LJ Scorpius/Rose Ficafest 2012.


**Written for the 2012 Scorpius Malfoy/Rose Weasley Ficafest at Livejournal.**

**Author: **lyre_flowers on LJ / Anna Scathach on FFN  
**Title:** Of Roses and Little Princes  
**Prompt:** 050. It's said it takes seven years to grow completely new skin cells. To think, this year I will grow into a body you never will have touched. - Brett Elizabeth Jenkins  
**Summary:** Your hands touched my skin one last time, not in a caress per se – but in a rough stroke that conveyed hurt and sadness and love. Your face was still, resigned. And I couldn't help thinking, maybe love isn't meant to last.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Warnings:** Character death.  
**Word Count: **about 1200  
**Disclaimer:** Anything you might recognise is not mine, it all belongs to J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros. etc, as well as to Antoine d'Exupéry for _The Little Prince_. No copyright infringement intended.  
**A/N:** First, enormous thanks to the Mods for running this fabulous ficafest again! Also many well-deserved thanks to my beta, Tuesday November. My prayers and thoughts go to J's mother and to C, my godmother – may you be happy where you are now – and to all those who recently lost a loved one.

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**Of Roses and Little Princes**

They say love lasts forever.

Does it?

Did it, my love? Well, I don't think so.

After all, you left me. I left you. We left each other. I don't know what happened, we never found out the cause, but suddenly things were over, starkly, wildly so. Your hands touched my skin one last time, not in a caress per se – but in a rough stroke that conveyed hurt and sadness and love. Your face was still, resigned. And I couldn't help thinking, maybe love isn't meant to last.

Maybe passion like ours burns high and hot, and once the flames die down, it is no use trying to rekindle them.

Maybe we were ashes then, nothing but grey ashes. Grey like your eyes, those lovely eyes, your stormy eyes I remember so well.

I remember the grey eyes you fixed upon me on our first day at Hogwarts. I blushed like some naïve girl, like the naïve girl of eleven that I was – all curly red hair and robes, caught up in a book as per usual. It took years after that glance to get to know you, and I never used to regret a single instant I spent with you.

And today? Today I am older. I know my hair is greying, not by much – Merlin knows I am grateful to the Weasley genes for that. The sun has wrinkled my face; however, I'd like to think it's still a pleasant face, smiling and happy most of the time. You know I was never one to cry.

I was always the rational one, the one to over-think, to over-analyse it all – the one to discard feelings as utter nonsense and silly sentimentality. To think that I have spent so much time crying because of you – ever since then it has been glaringly obvious to me why the human body is essentially made of water. Sometimes I felt as if there were nothing but water inside of me. And it came out like a river, like mountain snow melting in springtime.

But spring ends, and turns into summer. Then autumn. Lastly, winter. And like wheat drying up in the summer sun, my tears dried on my face. I swallowed, hard, and decided to continue.

Pretending not to have loved, not to have known you wasn't easy. I smiled, laughed, chattered, and yet I was convinced everybody could see my scars in the thin lines around my mouth or the way my eyes never quite managed to crinkle in a smile.

While it takes seventeen muscles to smile, it takes 43 to frown – I must have read that somewhere. Still my nose is usually buried in a book, and Flourish & Blott's is the one place I still frequently go to. No more cafés for me, no Madam Puddifoot's, I can't stand the happy couples any longer.

It still isn't easy. I'm only going through the motions. My friends have long since stopped talking about you, so have our families. After all, what use? They know my face simply turns to stone.

"Why do you close yourself off from the world?" Albus asked once.

"The world closed itself off from me," I replied simply.

That was the end of it.

And to think it has been so long now. I wish you were here, still. I wish you hadn't gone. Living without you is hard. Even the daily household chores feel empty without you there in the kitchen. Without your humming and singing, spring cleaning just isn't the same. Neither is cooking without you tasting the recipes before they're done and burning your tongue on my hot stew.

I miss you most in the evenings. When the sun sets, the shadows become longer and the bedroom fills with beams of red, orange, yellow, gold, then violet, I miss you. My heart hurts, thinking of you, wherever you may be. Then, I wish you were here with me.

I wish you were here. To hold me in your arms, to squeeze me tightly, to kiss me tenderly. To make love to me on the soft blue satin bedding, to hold me to your chest afterwards and to fall asleep in my arms.

Though if I could be granted one wish, I would ask to wake up with you again.

I can imagine it well. Can't you?

On Sunday morning, the church bells chime in the distance and sunlight filters into the bedroom through the shutters. We cuddle, my head on your chest, too lazy to wake up.

"This must be paradise," I murmur.

Curled up like cats on the bed, limbs tangled and soft blues music playing, your breath feels warm on my shoulder. Ephemeral paradise, and only ours for a while. As your fingers lightly caress my neck, I lean into your touch. I smile and close my eyes.

Sometimes I fancy that you are still with me. I hear your laughter in the streets or see your shadow in the garden. I talk to you, sometimes. You never answer – you never do.

I wish you would. It's never been the same without you – you were the one who truly understood me. Romeo to my Juliet, Mr Darcy to my Elizabeth Bennett, the Little Prince to my rose.

How you loved that tale. You used to say I was the rose – your Rose, protected and cherished - and that, had you lost me, you would do anything to come back to me.

Yet your body, too, was too heavy for you to return.

You whispered to me not to cry, because you would be returning home, finally home. You whispered I shouldn't worry. You whispered: "I love you."

I refused to leave you, in the end. They couldn't make me leave, and although you'd begged me not to watch you leave for it would make me sad, I watched as your snake took you away from me. And then, quietly, you were gone.

I looked upon your face and couldn't move. You lay there, silently. Scorpius Malfoy, face peaceful, with a golden halo of hair around his head – you looked like an angel, or like the little prince of legends and fairy tales.

For what felt like decades, I sat there, your cold hand still in mine. My other hand was stroking your hair. I waited until everybody had left the room to press one last kiss to your sweet lips.

Did you know that it takes seven years for the skin cells of a body to completely renew? To think that this year I will grow into a body you will never have touched, and that it still hurts. As if you had only closed your eyes seconds ago and silently slipped away from me.


End file.
